Ovarian cancer real lives
Margaret Rose AM
Margaret Rose, AM, is a rare person – she is an ovarian cancer survivor.
‘I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer 22 years ago, and my diagnosis was devastating and not very promising’,
‘I did not dare to think of the future, because all advice was, it was unlikely that I had a future. The diagnosis and treatment of this insidious disease left me emotionally and physically gutted – all dignity stripped away. While this was the lowest time of my life, in retrospect, what saddens me most is that my precious family had to endure unbelievable worry as they watched me shrink from a vibrant, loving mother and wife to a miserable creature, barely able to summon the energy to walk or talk at times.’
Letitia Linke
In 2014 Letitia Linke was on top of her world. The 34-year-old mother of two little boys, Ollie 9 and Tommy 8, had achieved a personal goal of losing some 30kg through her sheer determination to have a healthier life and was running her online interiors store and decorating business from the farm she runs with her husband Paul on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia.
‘I was feeling fabulous and the best I had in years. Then I discovered a lump in my abdomen that I couldn’t feel before, but I had no other symptoms’
During surgery to treat what were thought to be endometriomas and endometriosis, biopsies of the ovaries revealed ovarian cancer. A week later Letitia had a radical hysterectomy.